Yama wrote:I think Blue is a good guy and have nothing against him personally, I'm not going to bash him like a ton are now suddenly doing. A decent amount of people bashing were the same few claiming he was the glue that tied the Dojo together. Plain and simple, he messed up and perhaps he was that glue during another era, but not this one. Needless to say, one mistake doesn't totally change how I feel about a person. If he were to post as a regular user, I doubt anyone would truly oppose it, at least not now while on level ground. At the very least I give my props in saying that he knew he wasn't mod material anymore, so left on his own accord. Obviously the rest was inevitable, but the fact that he did it himself, I have a level of respect for that (outside of de-modding someone else). I still like Blue and always will, in fact it'll be easier to have a friendship without the stresses of him having to staff it up here.

I wouldn't say I'm bashing him,very far from it actually.He just did a lot of questionable things that I didn't agree with.Nothing more nothing less.

Now that I think of it,I don't think I've ever had a personal problem with anyone here.I've always been a mixture of a lurker and poster.I joined the shenmue community when I was a young teen so I've seen my fair share of events,but in the end I've just never been bothered by anyone here.I love this place and the people here.

"I have lived my life as best I could, not knowing its purpose, but drawn forward like a moth to a distant moon; and here at last, I discover a strange truth. That I am only a conduit, for a message that eludes my understanding." - Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Well i'll welcome him more as a regular user. It's one of the first things I said. But when his personal issues started to affect his abilities as a mod/admn, that's when I started becoming critical. I kept the faith that we were just in jest with each other but it became apparent that it wasn't the case.

It became this exclusive club society where you couldn't poke fun at the host but you had to watch the host poke fun at everyone else, at their expense. That just wasn't right. I am well-versed on his reasons why he acted out as he did but he should've been demoted. I guess we were too cautious about his mental state (he threatened suicide more than once) and made sure we weren't pushing him to the edge and let him keep his duties, but we ended up creating this nasty situation. Collectively, myself included.

He's not an evil person, we can all agree with that, but also relieved that we're all finding our spots and getting to an agreement. A real one. One that creates a more welcoming, fun forum like the way it used to be where no one can be scared to say anything (within the confines of the rules, of course).

Hello, everyone! I am unbanned! I was having an email back-and-forth with Yama a while ago, requesting to be unbanned. He unbanned me then, but when I checked I could not log in and was still banned. As if somebody had overruled his decision. You'd have all had Martin-love months ago if it were not for that. I don't know how many years I've been gone (three/four?), but my love for Shenmue has never wavered. When asked, I still tell people my favourite game ever is Shenmue.

I must say, I am deeply-moved by the 'FREE MARTIN' campaign. I didn't realise I had any impact on these boards at all. It seems some of you have been holding a lit candle for me in these dark, Dojo-less years. Thank you! From memory, I was banned by Ryudo after I said something to him. I can't remember what I said, but I do remember feeling like I didn't deserve a banning. I also remember feeling back then that newly-appointed staff member Ryudo had let all that admin power go to his head. I remember him administering warnings and bannings left right and center.

It seems a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. QWERTY just sent me a PM attempting to fill me in on what has happened, but in all honesty I couldn't make hide nor hare of it. Not QWERTY's fault. I gather things came to a head with Ryudo, and gradually he began to adversely-affect this community? That's about all I can make out.

Whatever has happened, I think the key word here is community. I know that when I was here last, this place had real character. It was more than just a Shenmue board. We had all kinds of extremely-intelligent members, like the guy with the top hat cat? What was his name? Mr-something? Then there were members who would mask their intelligence under humour, which was also a cool thing. Mostly they'd participate in a funny or irreverent way, and occasionally they would reveal their intelligence through extremely-insightful posts. People like Mittenz.

I feel I must apologise if I had ever acted incorrectly. Perhaps I did deserve to be banned. After all, who gets banned and thinks "Yeah, I deserved that"? From what I remember, I used to complain about signature sizes and coloured text. Little things used to annoy me, and rather than suck it up, I would air my puny grievances as if they were major problems. For that, I apologise.

Hopefully whatever bad blood has occurred since I've been away can be laid to rest. Shenmue Dojo has always been one of those great rare things - a gaming community who, in addition to a love for a particular series, have an ability to post and discuss extremely interesting topics which have nothing to do with games, but the world we live in, and the people we must live in it with.

I can almost feel the intense orgasm that Mitts will have when hearing of your return. Wait that sounded weird, but you're back at the dojo, so you know it's weird here. Welcome home brother, hope you stick around...

I was temp. banned unfairly by Ryudo a while back, which lead me to go on hiatus for a few months. I came back though even while Ryudo was still an admin, and have been posting sparingly since then mostly ignoring him. So, I can put up with him. He gets on my nerves, and frankly, he always has (even before he was a mod) so I've learned to deal with it. So, Ryudo coming back as a regular member I wouldn't mind.

It's interesting to see nearly everyone else sharing the same opinion I always did of him, and from some of the same people I thought were part of his goon squad. I guess in my absence I missed how bad it had gotten.

...another anti-climactic moment on the Dojo. This could've been a hell of a lot more grand a re-enterance, but no, you had to type a formal post like the CEO of some shitty company releasing a statement to the press in order to apologise for something that no normal person should apologise for.

But coz I got name-dropped, I'll forgive you. And welcome back. Now tell me what the fuck happened to Warehouse no. 8, coz I lost connection to the internet for about 4 months, and by the time I got it back, W8 was gone. I wasn't impressed...

W8? Haven't heard that name in a long time! The site is no more, and has been no more for years. We all quickly ran out of steam on it, realising that none of us were cut out/bothered to promote and run our own website. As for my apologies.. I'm sorry